For an eye-opening discussion of the investment needed see http://eands.caltech.edu/articles/LXXIII3/2010_Summer_MacKay.pdf Especially see the graphic on the last page. Meeting all of today's energy needs in the US using only wind would require 200,000 square kilometers of wind farms. That is the area of the state of Nebraska. Yeesh.
Not too bad actually, when you consider that you can plant wind turbines in the middle of farm fields. Here in Minneapolis we have turbines in parking lots, and other 'urban' areas. Wind turbines take up very little ground space.
We couldn't put all of the turbines in Nebraska anyway. Our grid wouldn't allow it. But- renewable energy advocates don't advocate using nothing but wind power, or nothing but solar power... there are issues with all types of power production.
Of course most of them wouldn't be in Nebraska, that was just an area comparison. The best wind resources are offshore from the North East Atlantic states, the West coast, the Gulf, and in all of the Great Lakes. Fortunately those are fairly close to the largest consumers, but it would still require roughly 500,000 miles of new transmission lines to connect them, at about $1 million per mile...
I still like the recurring cost of the fuel. For Nebraska, the side benefit would be the elimination of all undesired buzzards and bats. The transmission line cost is just one stimulus bill.
Michigan has some really bad laws dealing with wind turbines. The power companies have stacked the deck to make sure that turbines are not cost effective. A group is trying to site one at our village, but the current laws would require that we waste half of the generated power. The power company is only required to accept half of what it can produce, and they have no interest in anything above the minimum required by law. Tom
Profits before people, every time. Yet again, corporate interests trump common sense. I don't suppose you could just start your own power company?
Wind is best balanced with a source of power that can be turned on and off. Currently this is gas, where a new combined cycle plant can manage 60% efficiency which can go from off to full power in 30 minutes. Those states using gas currently have the easiest job of converting. BIogas is renewable and can be burned in these plants in the future. Think of Wind as 25% not 100% of the grid and the numbers work out much better as less marginal land is used. Offshore areas are much more expensive to develop than those on land. If you look at a wind map, the texas grid and western grid have plenty of wind potential, the eastern grid is more difficult. On the texas grid, less than 1% of texas land is needed to provide 23% of the electricity for the state. The best land is far away from the population, but the federal and state government are now modernizing the grid to add wind and solar in the west and get it to central and east texas customers. This land is mainly owned by ranchers who are happy to get some revenue for a power company to put up a few windmills on the land, or the state where the revenue from power companies is earmarked to pay for the school system. In the eastern grid only new Hampshire and Vermont seem to have good tracts of land for wind power. This is all about the laws of each state. In Texas anyone can start their own power company. If its renewable energy the state has mandated easy ways to sell it to the grid. States like Michigan make it difficult, and if the grid is mainly coal utilities have difficulty managing uneven supplies of energy from wind and solar.
